


the one where peter has no idea how to ask mj out

by wjjmwmsn5



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 18:32:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11742759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wjjmwmsn5/pseuds/wjjmwmsn5
Summary: The last time Peter waited a long time to ask a girl out, her dad ended up being a villain, so he decides this time it's best to rip off the bandaid. Except he's not very good at that.





	the one where peter has no idea how to ask mj out

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by anonymous on tumblr. My url is transpeterparkers.  
> Also jsdlfj sorry if this isn't the best but hey it's the first time I'm writing MJ and Peter x MJ so I'm working on it

Peter didn’t know when, he didn’t know where along the way, but at some point he had stopped seeing Michelle as the quiet girl down at the end of the lunch table whose presence he didn’t realize how much he enjoyed until she was sick and the end of the lunch table was empty of her books and her occasional comments. 

It had to be some time before she asked him to call her “MJ,” because he had to admit, there was something about knowing that she wanted him to consider her a friend—that she considered  _ him  _ a friend—that made him feel really good. Like, a different kind of good than what he felt about being friends with Ned. But a different kind of good than when Liz said she would go to homecoming with him, too. 

He couldn’t pinpoint the moment, but it didn’t really matter. All that mattered was that he didn’t want to wait as long to do something about it as he waited with Liz. She would definitely notice things easier than Liz did, and that would be awkward. Besides, waiting that long hadn’t worked out before; it had only resulted in his girlfriend’s dad being a supervillain. Not resulted, actually. But that happened.

Not long after he started really noticing this feeling, he knew that he should tell Ned about it. They were both hanging out at Peter’s house, the two of them on their phones and both leaned back next to each other on his bed. After a bit of scrolling through MJ’s Instagram—which really didn’t have near as much on it as Liz’s had (not that he was comparing, or checking, or something, but to quote MJ, he was just being observant)—he looked over at his friend.

“Do you want to know something?” he asked, feeling a bit like a middle schooler confessing his crush, but it didn’t matter because it was just Ned so he could do that. 

“Obviously, especially if it’s the same kind of secret as ‘You’re Spider-Man.’” Ned sat up and looked down at Peter, who sighed and sat up after a moment as well. 

“Well, sorry to disappoint, but it’s not quite a superhero reveal,” he told him. He paused for a second and scratched his head. “I think I kind of like MJ.” 

“Maybe MJ is a superhero,” Ned mused. 

Peter rolled his eyes at him. “Come on, be serious, please.” 

“I already kind of knew about that,” Ned told him. “It’s obvious, to me at least.” He stared at him for a moment, and Ned must have known that this was in confusion and incredulity, because he continued: “I’ve been looking at memes for half an hour and I’m pretty sure you’ve just been going through her Twitter and Instagram the whole time.” 

“Well, that doesn’t mean anything,” he said defensively, frowning down at his phone like it had wronged him, giving away what he was thinking like that. “She’s really funny on Twitter, and I like the pictures she takes on her Instagram.”

“Why are you getting defensive when you’ve already said you like her?” 

Peter paused. He didn’t know the answer to that question. 

“Whatever,” he said, shaking his head as if to brush off that moment. “Do you think she likes me?” 

There was no hesitation. “Dude, yes,” Ned assured him, rolling his eyes a little bit. “She sat with you in detention.”

“To draw people in crisis,” Peter said, unsure if he really believed that she liked him.

“And you should have seen her face when you were at the dance with Liz.”

“Well, Liz was out of my league.”

Ned groaned. “Didn’t the spider, like, make your senses go crazy? You really couldn’t tell with how blind you’re being.”

Peter shot him a look, but he said, “Smooth,” anyway.

Ned grinned and nodded. “Yeah, I know. Anyway, you gotta tell her.”

He paused for a moment, but it was obvious that that was true. If both of them liked each other, there was no point in dancing around it, was there? Except dancing around it was safe and offered exactly  _ zero  _ embarrassment, as opposed to being rejected, which offered exactly  _ a lot. _ Maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe he could just keep on pretending like he had never had this conversation with Ned.

Except now that it was actually out there, he felt like it was real, and now he was going to be wondering every time she did something that seemed like maybe she liked him. And he was going to be all un-smooth about liking her now, and that definitely wouldn’t help anything.

Ned was right. He needed to just rip off the bandaid. 

Except ripping off the bandaid hurt. 

Crushes sucked.

“Okay. Okay, okay, okay, but how do I do that?” he asked. It wouldn’t hurt to have a game plan, even if he didn’t go through with it. 

Ned shrugged and leaned back on the bed again. Peter did the same, so they were laying side-by-side staring up at the bottom of the bunk bed above them. He was trying to picture some perfect scenario in his head, but every time he thought about what he would say to MJ, his mind went blank. Or it supplied him with a lame knock-knock joke or a science pun, and that wasn’t going to help him. 

“Tell her you’re Spider-Man,” Ned suggested, looking over at him and nodding enthusiastically. 

“I can’t tell her I’m Spider-Man, Ned.”

He huffed. “Well, you need to eventually. The groupchat will be so much more fun if she knows you’re Spider-Man, too.” Peter looked back at him. “I guess just be cool. MJ’s cool. She likes cool.”

That wasn’t really advice, but Peter didn’t know what advice he was going to get, anyway. But he thought he had a plan. 

…

The next day at school, Peter went back and forth in his head if he should actually go through with it and talk to MJ about his feelings. In the morning, he decided that he would, but he would wait until the end of the day. By lunchtime, it was starting to feel like the end of the day was too close, and he would never be ready to tell her. By the last period, he was certain he couldn’t do it.

But they crossed paths going to their lockers as they always did at the last period of the day and she was smiling about something. It was the kind of smile that happened when someone was walking alone and thinking of an old joke, so they tried to stifle it. She looked really pretty. She always looked really pretty, but Peter thought her smiles, including her half-smiles, were the nicest smiles he’d ever seen. Even the ones that she smiled at him when she was messing with him. 

So he built up his resolve and hurried to his locker, pushing a bit through the horde of people trying to get home or to their after-school activities. He shoved his books in his bag and breathed in deeply, staring into his locker for one more second before turning around with determination in his heart. 

He walked to her locker, and thankfully she was still there, throwing a couple books in and then zipping up her backpack. And even more thankfully, there weren’t many people around. He had built his plan around the fact that her locker was in the cramped corner by the staircase, so no one really lingered back there like they did around the lockers closest to the exits. 

Before she could turn and walk away from her locker, ruining the whole plan, he walked over and said, “Hey, MJ— oh fuck.”

He was on the ground. 

He had meant to lean against the lockers nearest hers like guys did to their girlfriends in movies, knowing that she would think it was dorky. But if she liked him, she must have liked some of his dorkiness. 

He hadn’t meant to fall on the ground. That was beyond the level of dorkiness he had meant to put into this. 

She looked down at him as she slung her backpack over her shoulder, frowning a little bit. One of the people who was still at their locker when this happened looked down at him on the floor and put a hand over their mouth to hide the grin that was forming. Peter could hear them laughing as they walked away.

“What are you doing on the ground, Peter?” she asked.

“This is exactly where I meant to be,” he told her. He could feel how red his cheeks were from the warmth pooling around up there, and he was a bit too embarrassed to remember how to stand up. “I was planning this for hours.”

She stared at him for a long moment, like she was trying to make sense of just what the hell he was saying. If she had voiced her confusion, he would have assured her that he had no idea either. “Right… Do you need help up?”

“Uh, no. Maybe.” He stood up after remembering that normal conversations took place with both people standing up. Well, not always, he told himself. But when one was standing, normal conversations didn’t usually involve the other person on the ground. “So… what are you doing… here?”

His brain felt very distinctly like a keyboard smash. If he was supposed to be thinking logical thoughts, like  _ Try not to ruin the situation further _ , then his brain would surely be surprised about that, because all that was happening up there was a very loud  _ Fjklsdjflsjdffl _ . 

“You’re acting weirder than usual,” MJ said after a moment. She started to walk out of the locker area, motioning him forward when he stayed in place. “What’s going on with you? You were acting weird all day, actually.”

“I… Well, I just wanted to ask if you want to hang out,” he said in a rush. 

She looked over at him as they maneuvered through a group of people who had decided to stop in the middle of the hallway. “Aren’t we hanging out this weekend?” 

“Yeah, but I mean— I mean that’s with Ned, and really we’re just gonna be playing video games while you read— I mean, not that that’s not great, but I mean—”

“I’m giving you one more ‘I mean’ to actually say what you mean,” she told him, the corner of her lips turning up in a small smile. He didn’t know if that meant she knew what he meant, or if she was entertained by all the times he said “I mean,” and he didn’t know if that mattered. 

“I mean…” He trailed off. He didn’t actually know how to say what he meant. “Do you know what I mean?”

“That’s two,” she pointed out. She bumped into him a little bit, which brought a big smile to his face. “Do you want to go get something to eat tomorrow night?” 

“Yes! That’s exactly what I mean.” 

She rolled her eyes at him. “You’re the worst. I’ll text you.” 

Peter nodded as they walked out of school, about to part ways. “Okay, cool. That’s cool,” he said. The words coming out of his mouth weren’t really under his control, but she was smiling at him and he could feel how big the grin on his face was. “Okay, see you. Or— talk to you later… I mean.” 

She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Shut the fuck up. Talk to you later.”

The two of them went in their separate directions, and he smiled down at the ground as he walked away. All he could think about was her pretty smile and where they should go tomorrow night. His heart was fluttering in his chest still from that whole… thing, and he had no idea how he was going to focus on anything with the way it made him feel. 

But all in all, he thought that that went pretty well. 


End file.
